Let Them Howl Play

Programs

Based on the infamous mock parliament that set the stage for Manitoba women to successfully gain the right to vote.

The Nellie McClung Foundation is proud to present the mockery that made history. This play is a retelling and re-enactment of the famous ‘mock-parliament’ play that featured Nellie McClung and her peers in the Political Equality League.

The performance of the original play was a turning point in the struggle for suffrage and most people think that there is a script that can be used to tell this wonderful story, alas there is not, until now. Playwright Sharon Bajer, has brought together Nellie’s writings and news from the day to create this cheeky story of a group of women who took on the roles of men and assured the audience, in mocking what they had just head from the Premier, “Nice men do not want to vote.”

It has been purposefully designed – both in length and in style- to be used in classrooms and for groups who want to take the ‘voting’ message to their colleagues.

Synopsis

Manitoba Free Press, O.B. Buell

Set as a play within a play, a young student and her professor travel back in time to witness Nellie McClung and the Political Equality League’s famous mock parliament held at the Walker theatre in Winnipeg in 1914. Based on historical documentation of the event, this one act play is filled with humour and music leading the audience through one of the most significant events in Canadian history.

The Playwright

‘Let Them Howl’ Playwright Sharon Bajer

Sharon Bajer is the playwright for Let Them Howl. She is also a director and an actress who has been based in Winnipeg since 1990.

Sharon is the author of several plays including Burnin’ Love, Molly’s Veil, Scrabble from the Apple and Going Home. She is also the creator of two one-woman shows, Jesus does Laundry Too and The Mother Load, as well as a musical, Hersteria. Sharon is a member of Prairie Theatre Exchange’s inaugural Playwright’s Unit, where she is currently developing a new play The Fourth World.

A graduate of Vancouver’s Studio 58, her performance work has taken her from coast to coast, to Denmark, Italy and Israel. She has adapted, directed and produced three productions for her company The Winnipegger Ensemble: Bertolt Brecht’s, The Wedding, The Apartment and To the Country (an adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s White Nights).